**A New York Times Notable Book ****- Daily Beast Best Nonfiction of
2014 - Inc. Magazine's Most Thought-Provoking Books of the
Year
*"Man is born free, but he is everywhere in cubicles."
*
How did we get from Scrooge's office to "Office Space"? From bookkeepers
in dark countinghouses to freelancers in bright cafes? What would the
world be like without the vertical file cabinet? What would the world be
like without the office at all? In Cubed, Nikil Saval chronicles the
evolution of the office in a fascinating, often funny, and sometimes
disturbing anatomy of the white-collar world and how it came to be the
way it is. Drawing on the history of architecture and business, as well
as a host of pop culture artifacts--from Mad Men to Dilbert (and, yes,
The Office)--and ranging in time from the earliest clerical houses to
the surprisingly utopian origins of the cubicle to the funhouse campuses
of Silicon Valley, Cubed is an all-encompassing investigation into the
way we work, why we do it the way we do (and often don't like it), and
how we might do better.